Since San Martin return to the country in 1812, despite being from that moment a main actor in political reality, San Martin remained oblivious to the "race of the revolution" in the fight for spaces of power. However, San Martin was able to restore its continental dimension and its offensive capacity by promoting a collective enterprise of tremendous magnitude.
In the North, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army replacing Belgrano, he did not get to fight battles, but he was quickly convinced of the impossibility of undertaking that path. At the same time that he reorganized the Army, disposing of the funds seized by Belgrano in Upper Peru without sending them to Buenos Aires, he strengthened ties with the leaders of the vanguard: Manuel Dorrego and Martín Miguel de Güemes. Precisely, he approved the "guerrilla warfare" that the latter had been developing as an effective defense method.
Already convinced of the need to cross the Andes and defeat the royalists in Chile and Peru, he managed to get Posadas appointed Governor Mayor of Cuyo. Once installed in Mendoza, he interceded between the rival factions of the defeated Chilean Old Homeland that had taken refuge in our city after the failure of Rancagua and settled the fate of the trans-Andean revolution by finally supporting the O'Higgins side, a fact that It was worth the hatred of the Carrera.
He made Cuyo his base of operations with Mendoza at the helm. In this way, our province became an essential strategic resource to "arm" the emancipating army from it. In the exercise of his political functions, he knew how to earn the trust of the people as well as the wealthy classes. His government work brought prosperity to these lands: he devoted himself to finance, regulating the postal and telegraph service, and modernizing education. He also eliminated the whipping, modified the prison regime, and was concerned about health, environmental sanitation, and wine production. He would record his "eternal gratitude" to the people of Mendoza when he left for Chile in January 1817, whom he acknowledged having made "heroic sacrifices for the independence and common prosperity of the Nation."
Since the installation of the Congress in Tucumán, he arbitrated the means to influence the prompt declaration of independence, as expressed in a letter to Godoy Cruz, deputy for Mendoza: “How long do we expect to declare our independence! Doesn't it seem quite ridiculous to you to mint money, have a national flag and coin, and finally wage war on the sovereign on whom we believe we depend on today?" And he not only hastened it, but he was the architect of a new direction for the revolution. This new course was reflected in the enunciation of the subjects who arrogated sovereignty, "the representatives of the United Provinces in South America", giving rise to their conception of the American Great Homeland, which they sought to emancipate together, above the multiplicity of nations into which the extensive territory under Spanish colonial domination ended up fragmenting.
He knew how to win the trust of Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, and pulled the strings so that Congress itself appointed him Supreme Director. Then he obtained official acceptance from him to create the "Army of the Andes" on August 1, 1816, being named it's General Commander on the spot.
In his strategic capacity, there are no omissions: he took care of all the aspects and all the details inherent to the enormous undertaking that he was preparing to carry out. He parleyed with the Pehuenche Indians of the South with the collaboration of Fray Inalicán. From another friar, who took care of the forge, he obtained the necessary artillery pieces and spare rifles; Engineer Álvarez Condarco, the manufacture of gunpowder and the meticulous study of the Andean passes; of Diego Paroisien, the organization of a field hospital. He thought of every detail and managed to form an army of more than 5,000 men from the few regiments that existed in Mendoza –soft, the Chilean Auxiliary Argentines, and the few militiamen that existed around 1814. He confused the enemy with the "sapper war" and forced him to disperse. He started the crossing in January 1817.
He achieved partial success in the battle of Chacabuco in February of the same year and proclaimed the Independence of Chile together with O'Higgins after the victory of Maipú in 1818. While preparing the march towards Peru, and facing the looming danger, he harangued to his troops "[…] without a doubt the Galicians believe that we are tired of fighting and that our sabers and bayonets no longer cut or skewer; we are going to disappoint them. We have to make war for them the way we can. If we do not have money, meat, and a piece of tobacco we will not lack; when the changing rooms are finished, we will dress in the little clothes that our women work for us and if not, we will walk like our countrymen the Indians ", continuing one of his phrases most famous "Let's be free and the rest doesn't matter at all".
Meanwhile, the dissolution of the government that had appointed him took place in Buenos Aires, despite the requests made respectively to Artigas and López to avoid the collapse of the central authority that could harm the progress of his emancipation plan. He gathered his officers and resigned before them, leaving them free to choose his successor. However, he was proclaimed head by his own men, becoming the head of an American army with "floating" sovereignty.
He arrived in Peru and, without fighting a battle, proclaimed its Independence in 1821. He accepted the appointment as Protector, but promptly resigned his post to save the great work of American emancipation.
That man, chief of a Chilean, Peruvian, Argentinean army, of castes, mixed and American par excellence, was the owner of a proverbial modesty, reflected in the words of Juan B. Alberdi who would write about him:
“I was struck by his remarkably thick and manly voice metal. He speaks without the slightest affectation, with all the plainness of a common man. Seeing the way he considers himself, it would seem that this man had done nothing remarkable in the world because it seems that he is the first to believe so. He rarely or never talks about politics. He never brings to the conversation, with indifferent people, his campaigns in South America; however, he generally likes to talk about military enterprises ”
He was born, grew up, and acted in a range of very different contexts. He demonstrated exemplary strategic clarity and, simultaneously, the tactical flexibility necessary to choose the right words, men, and actions to succeed. The independence of America was his main objective. His intransigence in his principles was confirmed by his withdrawal from the Argentine political scene when he was claimed by the opposing sectors in the civil war. Since that August 17, 1850, present and future generations have had a task: the definitive concretion of Latin American unity is a debt to the father of the Nation.
